Homebuilders have to use additional incentives to attract buyers — especially those in the market for entry-level homes — as interest rates remain stubbornly high.
That’s what Tri Pointe Homes is doing for three residential developments in Austin.
The Nevada-based homebuilder’s internal mortgage company is offering 30-year fixed-rate, 1-0 buydowns for some homes near Austin, with first year rates at 4 percent and 5.5 percent for the remainder of the term. Some of its homes in Dallas are offering buyers 3 percent the first year.
After interest rates started climbing in 2022, builders began offering mortgage rate buydowns as a way to give buyers the opportunity to pay less upfront. Tri Pointe’s offer is a conservative version of a few available formulas; builders also offer a 3-2-1 and 2-1 buydown.
The firm started groundwork in July of last year on the 447-home Park Central community in Georgetown, Tri Pointe’s first self-developed Austin project. Park Central will offer 191 single family homes and 256 townhomes with three to five bedrooms ranging from 1,800 to 3,000 square feet. Sales are expected to begin early next year.
Tri Pointe is also developing the 358-lot Lagos Reserve in Manor, with sales projected to begin for the first phase in the second quarter of next year.
At the Flora community in Hutto, Tri Pointe is buying finished lots from developer Empire Continental Land and several other builders. Empire plans to establish 2,800 homes in Flora, of which Tri Pointe will begin selling 60 this quarter.
By paying the lender lump sums, builders can offer more affordability without discounting the prices of homes. But it’s costing them: Lennar spent $53,400 in average sales incentives per home delivery in Texas in the third quarter this year, up roughly 8 percent from the same quarter last year, which comes out to about 17 percent of revenue spent on concessions per home, according to its latest earnings report. Mortgage rate buy downs “remain a crucial tool in addressing affordability challenges,” Tri Pointe said in its third quarter earnings report.
“The challenge may not necessarily be the price; it’s the affordability with the mortgage rate,” said Tri Pointe’s Austin division president Bryan Havel. “If they can get the affordability they need, that’s more important to them.”
In addition to mortgage buy-downs, home builders in Texas increasingly arranged forward commitment agreements with affiliated mortgage lenders this year. Builders can pre-purchase blocks of mortgages for several homes in a development at a lower interest rate, often from their own internal mortgage companies, then incentivize buyers with lower rates, said Austin Real Estate Experts owner Matt Menard.
Builders are beating the resale market with the forward commitment strategy by sidestepping seller concession caps, which typically limit how much a seller can contribute toward a buyer’s closing costs at 3 to 6 percent, depending on the loan, Menard said.
It’s been one move for builders addressing consecutive years of high interest rates and home price gains, as much as 25 percent in some Texas metros, that have stressed affordability for buyers.
“What builders did in response is they got in the finance business,” Menard said.
The need for these kinds of incentives could, of course, change with the new Trump presidency.
Industry leaders anticipate the new administration will bring further growth in the real estate market, but Treasury yields may keep mortgage rates high. Mortgage rates increased, from 6.11 percent in September to 7.13 percent after the election, despite the Federal Reserve’s interest rate cut in September and another last week.
High rates will remain the industry’s greatest challenge in the near term, Havel said. He expects elevated demand for new homes to continue into next year, but said if Trump’s previous stint in the White House gave builders any hints, it’s to expect the unexpected.
Tri Pointe is the 17th largest homebuilder in the nation, with 5,274 closings and $3.7 billion in gross revenue last year, according to Builder Magazine. The builder is selling homes in 54 neighborhoods across the state, including six in Austin, according to its website.
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